Controversial conceptions

Controversial conceptions

Monday 8 May 2006 20.03 EDT
First published on Monday 8 May 2006 20.03 EDT

We are very concerned about the proposal to allow cloning researchers to collect eggs from women who are not undergoing IVF, which the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is discussing tomorrow.

Among the risks of hormonal stimulation of the ovaries is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can affect up to 10% of women, and can be fatal in rare cases. Because of these risks, until now, ova (eggs) could be donated for research in the UK only by women who were already undergoing IVF. But because of the inefficiency of cloning, which means that hundreds, maybe thousands, of eggs are needed, researchers are now calling for a change to the ethical rules, allowing for "altruistic" egg donation from women who are not undergoing IVF, and who will receive no therapeutic benefit.

We are in favour of women's rights to control their bodies and their fertility. We believe that the risks of hormonal hyperstimulation of the ovaries cannot be justified in basic research, in which the benefits are very uncertain: the risk/benefit ratio is far too high. There are alternative approaches to the research goals. The recent cloning research scandal in Korea, in which many women were harmed, should show us the hazards of a scientific race to be the first to create cloned embryos.

We call on the HFEA to reject this proposal, which represents a significant danger to women's health, and is a form of exploitation of women's bodies.Professor Donna Dickenson, Sarah Sexton, The Cornerhouse, Professor Regine Kollek, German National Ethics Council, Dr Alex Plows, Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, Dr Sigrid Grauman, Institute Mensch Ethik und Wissenschaft, Dr Itziar Alkorta Idiakez, University of the Basque Country, Dr Ingrid Schneider, University of Hamburg, Dr Giselind Berg, ReproKult, Germany, Dr David King, Human Genetics Alert, London

Polly Toynbee sympathises with the wrong woman (Behind the outcry lurks the image of a haggard witch and her demon child, May 5). She should have considered the plight of the woman who provided Patricia Rashbrook with the egg. Perhaps she is one of the young eastern European women who, for a few dollars, undergo ovarian stimulation in order to provide eggs for wealthy women who can afford to pay up to £50,000 for treatment at clinics which have been set up in their country deliberately to exploit their bodies.

Ovarian stimulation is a risky procedure and it is doubtful whether Romanian or Bulgarian egg "donors" can afford the necessary life-saving treatment. While it is possible to understand why someone in need of a life-saving kidney transplant might resort to buying one in India or elsewhere, one can only condemn people prepared to buy eggs from vulnerable women in order to conceive a pregnancy in their 60s.Professor Naomi Pfeffer London

While Jonathan Glover is right to say that fertility treatment is not like adoption (Comment, May 6), he seems to imply that Patricia Rashbrook's case lies on the fertility treatment side of this divide. In fact, it is adoption, and is indeed nothing like fertility treatment. Dr Rashbrook will give birth still infertile, to another woman's child. She has, if you like, adopted another woman's egg. Both the egg and sperm used to produce the embryo existed independently of Dr Rashbrook, and would have existed even if she herself never had, and could theoretically have still been combined to form that embryo.Charles Gilman Egham, Surrey

My father died when I was 21 and my mother died eight years later. When I read Dr Severino Antinori's smug pronouncement that the child's parents should live "at least 20 to 25 years" I was transported back to those painful times in my 20s, and felt like weeping. Of course one's parents could die at any age, but conceiving a child in the certain knowledge that it will be parentless before it reaches the age of 30 strikes me as being cruel and very selfish.Kate Sayer Leamington Spa, Warks